Theater review

"You Never Can Tell"

It’s only fitting that the cast of “You Never Can Tell” uncorks a bottle of Champagne during its curtain calls and toast the audience. It’s the perfect end to a sparkling revival of George Bernard Shaw’s delightful 1897 comedy.

David Staller, who directs this co-production by the Pearl and the Gingold Theatrical Group, has the distinction of being the first person to have staged all of Shaw’s plays — more than 60 in all — and his Shavian savvy shines through.

Written in response to Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” this comedy of errors deftly weaves the issues of both class and feminism into a convoluted plot.

It begins with the return to England of Margaret Clandon (Robin Leslie Brown), author of a series of best-selling advice books dubbed the “Twentieth Century Treatises.” With her are the three grown children she had with the domineering husband she left years earlier.

Eighteen-year-old twins Dolly (Emma Wisniewski) and Philip (Ben Charles) are daffy and fun-loving, while their serious-minded older sister, Gloria (Amelia Pedlow), clearly takes after their mother. Even so, it doesn’t prevent her from falling head­ over heels in love with Mr. Valentine (Sean McNall), an impoverished “five-shilling dentist” — the bargain price for all his procedures — who extracts her tooth in the slapstick opening scene.

When Valentine reciprocates, he’s accused of going after Gloria’s money.

“I am,” he responds, reasonably. “You expect my wife to live on what I earn?”

It’s eventually revealed that Valentine’s wealthy landlord, the blustery Fergus Crampton (Bradford Cover), is the patriarch abandoned long ago. The resulting reunion at a seaside resort results in farcical complications that are observed by the ever­hovering waiter (Dan Dailey) whose oft-repeated philosophy gives the play its title.